Vice President, Data Services

Over the last 20 years, Ares’ success has been driven by our people and our culture. Today, our team is guided by our core values - Collaborative, Responsible, Entrepreneurial, Self-Aware, Trustworthy - and our purpose to be a catalyst for shared prosperity and a better future. Through our recruitment, career development and employee-focused programming, we are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive work environment where high-performance talent of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can build careers within this exciting and growing industry.

Job Description

Ares Management is seeking a Vice President, Data Services for defining and executing the enterprise strategy for delivering trusted, governed, and scalable data products to consumers across the organization and external ecosystems. This role leads the architecture, engineering, and operations of modern data distribution platforms supporting APIs, services, event streaming, data sharing, and real-time data delivery.

The successful candidate combines deep expertise in API platforms, event-driven architecture, Databricks data sharing, streaming technologies, and cloud-native engineering with proven experience building and scaling enterprise data platforms.

Reporting relationships

Reports to: Principal, Head of Data Platforms

Supervises: n/a

Primary functions & responsibilities

Enterprise Data Platform Engineering

· Define and execute the enterprise Data Distribution strategy and multi-year roadmap.

· Establish a product-driven approach to delivering enterprise data products and data services.

· Build and lead high-performing engineering teams responsible for API, streaming, and data-sharing platforms.

· Drive adoption of modern data distribution patterns, including APIs, GraphQL, event streams, and data products.

· Partner with business, architecture, data governance, and platform teams to align distribution capabilities with strategic objectives.

· Define platform KPIs, consumer adoption metrics, SLAs, and operational performance standards.

API & Data Services Platform

· Lead the design and operation of enterprise API platforms enabling standardized access to data products.

· Establish API-first principles for internal and external data consumption.

· Develop reusable frameworks for secure, scalable, and governed data services.

· Define standards for API lifecycle management, versioning, documentation, and discoverability.

· Enable self-service access to enterprise data through modern service interfaces.

· Partner with domain teams to expose business capabilities as consumable data services.

· Establish data product delivery patterns using Databricks Delta Sharing and secure cloud-native distribution mechanisms.

· Ensure data products are discoverable, governed, and consumable through enterprise catalogs.

· Drive adoption of data marketplace and self-service data consumption capabilities.

Business & Stakeholder Engagement

· Partner directly with stakeholders across Investment Operations, Finance, Compliance, Investor Relations, Risk, and Investment teams.

· Translate complex business requirements into scalable technical solutions.

· Drive successful delivery of strategic data initiatives and enhancements.

Data Governance & Quality

· Implement and support data quality controls, lineage, metadata, and governance capabilities.

· Contribute to data security, privacy, and compliance requirements.

· Establish technical standards and engineering best practices.

Leadership & Collaboration

· Lead technical workstreams and complex engineering initiatives.

· Mentor junior team members and provide technical guidance.

· Participate in architecture discussions and technology evaluations.

· Collaborate with leadership on platform roadmap and prioritization efforts.

Qualifications

Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field

Experience Required:

· Extensive experience (12+ years) designing and operating enterprise-scale data distribution platforms utilizing REST APIs, GraphQL, API gateways, and microservices architectures to deliver governed and consumable data products.

· Deep expertise implementing Databricks Catalog Sharing, Delta Sharing, Unity Catalog, and Lakehouse architectures to enable secure internal and external data sharing across business domains and partners.

· Proven experience building real-time data distribution solutions using Apache Kafka, Confluent Platform, Azure Event Hubs, Service Bus, and event-driven architectures.

· Strong hands-on experience developing cloud-native data services on Azure, including API Management, Kubernetes (AKS), functions, Databricks, and modern distributed data platforms.

· Expertise implementing data product operating models, data contracts, semantic layers, metadata-driven discovery, and self-service data consumption capabilities.

· Strong experience establishing security, governance, observability, lineage, entitlement management, authentication, authorization, and audit controls across enterprise distribution channels.

General Requirements:

• 12+ years of experience in data engineering, distributed systems, API platforms, or data architecture.
• 8+ years of leadership experience managing engineering organizations.
• Proven experience building enterprise-scale API, streaming, and data-sharing platforms.
• Experience delivering cloud-native data solutions on Azure and Databricks.
• Strong background in enterprise data architecture and large-scale data ecosystems.
• Experience in financial services, asset management, banking, fintech, or other highly regulated industries preferred.

Reporting Relationships

Compensation

The anticipated base salary range for this position is listed below. Total compensation may also include a discretionary performance-based bonus. Note, the range takes into account a broad spectrum of qualifications, including, but not limited to, years of relevant work experience, education, and other relevant qualifications specific to the role.

$210,000 - $230,000

The firm also offers robust Benefits offerings. Ares U.S. Core Benefits include Comprehensive Medical/Rx, Dental and Vision plans; 401(k) program with company match; Flexible Savings Accounts (FSA); Healthcare Savings Accounts (HSA) with company contribution; Basic and Voluntary Life Insurance; Long-Term Disability (LTD) and Short-Term Disability (STD) insurance; Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and Commuter Benefits plan for parking and transit.

Ares offers a number of additional benefits including access to a world-class medical advisory team, a mental health app that includes coaching, therapy and psychiatry, a mindfulness and wellbeing app, financial wellness benefit that includes access to a financial advisor, new parent leave, reproductive and adoption assistance, emergency backup care, matching gift program, education sponsorship program, and much more.

There is no set deadline to apply for this job opportunity. Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the search is no longer active.